Synopses & Reviews
Many of the earliest Africans to arrive in the Americas came to Central America with Spanish colonists in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and people of African descent constituted the majority of nonindigenous populations in the region long thereafter. Yet in the development of national identities and historical consciousness, Central American nations have often countenanced widespread practices of social, political, and regional exclusion of blacks. The postcolonial development of mestizo or mixed-race ideologies of national identity have systematically downplayed African ancestry and social and political involvement in favor of Spanish and Indian heritage and contributions. In addition, a powerful sense of place and belonging has led many peoples of African descent in Central America to identify themselves as something other than African American, reinforcing the tendency of local and foreign scholars to see Central America as peripheral to the African diaspora in the Americas. The essays in this collection begin to recover the forgotten and downplayed histories of blacks in Central America, demonstrating the centrality of African Americans to the regionandrsquo;s history from the earliest colonial times to the present. They reveal how modern nationalist attempts to define mixed-race majorities as andldquo;Indo-Hispanic,andrdquo; or as anything but African American, clash with the historical record of the first region of the Americas in which African Americans not only gained the right to vote but repeatedly held high office, including the presidency, following independence from Spain in 1821.
Contributors. Rina Candaacute;ceres Gandoacute;mez, Lowell Gudmundson, Ronald Harpelle, Juliet Hooker, Catherine Komisaruk, Russell Lohse, Paul Lokken, Mauricio Melandeacute;ndez Obando, Karl H. Offen, Lara Putnam, Justin Wolfe
Review
andldquo;This important collection of essays puts Central America firmly on the African Diaspora map. Blacks and Blackness in Central America is the one-stop volume that gathers together the leading scholars of the topic. They offer clear windows into their many years of research and discovery, collectively convincing the reader that Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were far from marginal to the historical trajectories of people of African descent in the Americas.andrdquo;andmdash;Matthew Restall, author of The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan
Review
andldquo;This enlightening collection is destined to become essential reading for all those interested in the history of race, particularly as it pertains to the black presence in Central America. With its meticulous research, rich interpretive frameworks, and broad chronological sweep from the early colonial period into modern times, Blacks and Blackness in Central America will change how we think about racial mixture, nation-building, African survivals, black identity, and the development of society in Latin America. Thanks to this book, andlsquo;Afro-Central Americaandrsquo; will become standard language in the vocabulary of the African Diaspora.andrdquo;andmdash;Ben Vinson III, author of Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico
Review
andldquo;[A] captivating addition to the growing historiographical discussion on race.and#160;Africans have populated the shores of Central America since the 1500s. Yet rarely has a single work brought together such diligent contributing authors who provide the depths of discussion in such fascinating, unraveling ways.
Review
andldquo;In
Blacks and Blackness in Central America, Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe push against the boundaries of the African diaspora as it is currently demarcated in the field of Postcolonial Studies. The editors of this collection assemble a wide range of essays that provide evidence for the presence of significant populations of African slaves in Central America between the
seventeenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as an analysis of the implications of this presence on present-day racial identification and political participation primarily in Nicaragua, Guatemala and Costa Rica. andrdquo; - Annette Quarcoopome, AmeriQuests
Review
andldquo;[A] major contribution to the scholarly literature. . . .andrdquo; - Anne S. Macpherson, American Historical Review
Review
andldquo;... [T]aken together, the essays in the volume go a long way toward addressing the complicated and messy topic of the history of blacks in Central America, and they certainly have the potential to lead to studies that will indeed transform the ways we think about the Atlantic world, race in Central America, and the construction of national identities.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;A trailblazing effort, this volume represents an important contribution to Central American historiography and African diaspora studies. It should be considered required reading for students and specialists alike.andrdquo;
Review
andldquo;All the essays in this excellent volume, whether in colonial or post-colonial contexts across Central America, offer a new vision of blacks andand#160;blackness in the region.andrdquo;
Synopsis
Scholars, apart from Central Americans, have largely ignored the history of Africans in Central America; this collection recuperates the ignored and forgotten history of blacks in the region.
Synopsis
Essays recovering the forgotten and downplayed histories of blacks in Central America, demonstrating the centrality of African Americans to the region s history from the earliest colonial times to the present.
About the Author
Lowell Gudmundson is Professor of Latin American Studies and History at Mount Holyoke College. He is the author of Costa Rica Before Coffee: Economy and Society on the Eve of the Export Boom, a co-author of Liberalism Before Liberal Reform, and a co-editor of Coffee, Society, and Power in Latin America.
Justin Wolfe is the William Arceneaux Associate Professor of Latin American History at Tulane University. He is the author of The Everyday Nation-State: Community and Ethnicity in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction / Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe 1
Part I. Colonial Worlds of Slavery and Freedom
Angolans in Amatitlandaacute;n: Sugar, African Immigrants, and Gente Ladina in Colonial Guatemala / Paul Lokken 27
Cacao and Slavery in Matina, Costa Rica, 1650-1750 / Russell Lohse 57
Race and Place in Colonial Mosquitia, 1600-1787 / Karl H. Offen 92
Slavery and Social Differentiation: Slave Wages in Omoa / Rina Candaacute;ceres Gandoacute;mez 130
Becoming Free, Becoming Ladino: Slave Emancipation and Mestizaje in Colonial Guatemala / Catherine Komisaruk 150
Part II. Nation Building and Reinscribing Race
andquot;The Cruel Whipandquot;: Race and Place in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua / Justin Wolfe 177
What Difference did Color Make? Blacks in the andquot;White Townsandquot; of Western Nicaragua in the 1880s / Lowell Gudmundson 209
Race and the Space of Citizenship: The Mosquito Coast and the Place of Blackness and Indigeneity in Nicaragua / Juliet Hooker 246
Eventually Alien: The Multigenerational Saga of British Western Indians in Central America, 1870-1940 / Lara Putnam 278
White Zones: American Enclave Communities of Central America / Ronald Harpelle 307
The Slow Ascent of the Marginalized: Afro-Descendents in Costa Rica and Nicaragua / Mauricio Melandeacute;ndez Obando 334
Bibliography 353
Contributors 385
Index 389